Peter Glick

Peter Glick, PhD (University of Minnesota) is the Henry Merritt Wriston Professor in the Social Sciences at Lawrence University, where he has taught since 1985.

In 2009, Dr. Glick was a Visiting Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Dr. Glick’s internationally recognized research on stereotyping and prejudice has successfully challenged prior conventional wisdom by revealing the surprising ways in which subjectively favorable beliefs about women and ethnic minorities can fuel and justify harmful discrimination.

Benevolent Sexism

Dr. Glick and collaborator Susan T. Fiske (Princeton University) have shown that “benevolent sexism” – beliefs that idealize women as wonderful but view them as weak and dependent on men go hand-in-hand with hostility toward women in nontraditional roles.
More than 15 years of research (in over 50 countries) using Glick and Fiske’s Ambivalent Sexism Inventory have documented that benevolent sexism predicts structural inequality (e.g., fewer women in high-powered business and government roles).
Lab and field work has revealed that benevolently sexist (patronizing) discrimination undermines women at work (e.g., by denying them challenging assignments or critical feedback).

Warmth-Competence Model

With Susan T. Fiske (Princeton) and Amy J. C. Cuddy (Harvard Business School), Dr. Glick is part of the team that developed the warmth-competence model, showing how these universal dimensions apply to judgments toward individuals and groups.
Women and ethnic minorities often are judged as high on one dimension but low on the other – i.e., as warm but incompetent or competent but cold – creating double-binds. This model also informs organizational consulting by the Relational Capital Group. The Harvard Business Review classified the warmth-competence model as “breakthrough idea” in 2009.